About
about the college
Today’s students are incredibly skilled, passionate, curious, and realistic, but they confront global challenges we’re just beginning to understand. The College is committed to preparing students for a lifetime of sustained art-making and creative thought. Our 91.4% freshmen retention rate and 4-year/64.5% and 6-year/69% graduation rates consistently exceed national numbers.
Mission
The College of Arts + Architecture promotes the arts and design as engines of civic imagination through distinction in creative teaching and research, artistic performance, and community-driven work.
Vision
Through investigations in the performing and visual arts, design and affiliated pursuits, we provoke thought, cultivate aesthetic sensibilities, make space for memory and reflection, instigate creative action, and help build communities.
The College’s vision is shaped by five challenges to contemporary arts and architecture and in response to our unique location and institutional context:
- The need to catalyze the institution’s mission as an urban research university through creative work, research, student empowerment, and partnerships in the Charlotte region and beyond
- The need for collaboration across disciplines and domains so as to be able to ask bolder and more relevant questions and expand students’ understandings of their roles and opportunities for achievement
- The need to embrace a rapidly changing arts and design, technology, demographic, economic, higher education, and post-pandemic landscape.
Explore Our Blog
Discover student success stories, dive deeper into different areas of our college, and more! Explore our vibrant community and see how we’re shaping the future of arts and architecture.
Strategic Plan
It is the College’s intention to fulfill the goals and objectives articulated below. As a community of educators, scholars, and practitioners in the arts, design, and affiliated fields, we are also prepared to respond creatively to the unforeseen. Through an inclusive process involving students and alumni, faculty and staff, and community partners, the College completed its 2021-26 Strategic Plan in Spring 2021.
Advance the College of Arts + Architecture as a robust organization in a post-pandemic reality
1. Build the CoA+A’s visibility, reputation, and strength as a college of visual arts, performing arts, design, and history.
2. Improve financial stewardship to best support the mission of the CoA+A; mindfully and transparently employ resources in support of College and unit priorities.
Cultivate a thriving network of sustained, trust-based partnerships that build CoA+A’s identity as a respected collaborator in the cultural landscape
1. Increase interdisciplinary research and study opportunities at UNC Charlotte.
2. Increase community-centered research and learning.
Build a college community that prioritizes access and belonging in our policies and practices
1. Revise curricula to prepare students to thrive and create in a global society.
2. Support faculty and staff of different ages, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, identities, and abilities and foster a culture of belonging in the college.
3. Attract and nurture students and promote openness and respect for and understanding of others.
Model environmental, economic, and social sustainability
1. Demonstrate social and environmental sustainability in College operations.
2. Develop curricula and advance research, creative practices, and projects that address the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.